Greg Peters

“Sing, Goddess, the wrath of Achilles.”
–Homer, opening of the Illiad

No, that’s not right. Greg Peters was so much more than the wrath of Suspect Device and so much the opposite of the boastful Achilles. What I most remember was the last conversation we had. He was sitting alone at a table at Mimi’s before the Krewe du Vieux parade, and I don’t remember a word we spoke. I just remember an easy manner, a smile like a child at once guilty and proud of what mischief he had done, the smile of a bashful teenage lover, looking down a bit when he smiled lest someone catch him at it. Beneath the public exterior of satirical cartoonist and ranting blogger was the soul of a genuine Buddhist, an easy compassion and acceptance of the world that perhaps masked an acceptance of mortality. He sat that night at ease among friends and yet distant, as if he were already leaving, sitting alone at his table receiving visitors, so many not knowing it would be the last time they would speak.

No, not an acceptance of mortality. This is going all wrong. Greg had the word “indestructible” tattooed on his forearm a short while ago. Words, ink: he was only going to fall with his pen in his hand, with a samurai beauty that combined a fierce defiance and a Zen certainty of bliss beyond death. That word spoke of his love of his young sons, the companionship of a good woman and many friends, so much he was not at age 50 ready to leave behind, so much more for a lightening-fired mind yet to do.

We were all thrown together by the storm, a collection of ranting and lamenting bloggers who fell together into an indivisible friendship. We birthed an anarchist conference called Rising Tide, “A conference on the future of New Orleans” and Greg was our artist. Each poster and t-shirt topped the last, the best the rough angel rising from the waters. Rising Tide has moved onto to a 501(c)3 with paperwork and committees and most of us who were there at the beginning fell away from that but never lost each other. At the center of that group was a meeting of minds and hearts larger than the rest, Greg’s (with Ashley Morris’s) largest of all.

We knew of his heart problems from the first. After his first surgery at a distant heart clinic fellow organized a collection to get him a Macbook so he could continue to work in his convalescence. We knew that heart of steel had a fatal flaw, one that would one day break and leave him holding the haft and staring Death in the face.

A heart of steel is no guarantee except against despair. Invincible until the end. We should all go so well.

Oṃ tāre tuttāre ture svāhā. I don’t know if Greg followed the Taras, the female Buddha, but he modeled so many of her aspects: Green Tārā, known as the Buddha of enlightened activity; Red Tārā, of fierce aspect associated with magnetizing all good things; Blue Tārā, associated with transmutation of anger. In the end White Tārā, also known for compassion, long life, healing and serenity, took him into her bosom, recognizing his compassion and serenity through so much suffering. It was enough for this one soul to advance. Oṃ tāre tuttāre ture svāhā.

Greg left us too soon but he carved a path through the world large enough most men would happily call it a life. Tārā Mother of Liberation, teach me to walk in his footsteps.